PHA | Papua New Guinea AAK Cooperative
Classic Profile | Medium roast
Tasting Notes: Brown Sugar, Caramel, Milk Chocolate
IT ALL STARTS AT THE COFFEE FARM
The AAK Cooperative is a group of 64 communities from across the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea, a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. Those 64 communities represent 64 different ‘house-lines’, single-family villages each with languages and traditions uniquely their own. What they have in common is a pidgin called Tok Pisin, and membership in the AAK Cooperative. AAK stands for Apo, Angra and Kange – the word for ‘Unity’ in the three major local languages.
With the exception of a few well-known estates, Papua New Guinea coffee is for the most part made up from smallholder production, all very small scale and very little attention is paid to high quality, specialty production due to the strong involvement of "middlemen". While the middlemen play a valuable role in bringing the coffee economy to remote areas high up in the mountains, they add yet another factor working against quality promotion between buyer and seller.
With so many disparate cultural groups and languages across the Highlands, PNG culture has traditionally also not lent itself well to cooperative export structures. AAK is one of the few organizations in the country to have successfully organized farmers across the Western, Central and Eastern Highlands into cohesive groups focused on quality, and Brian Kuglame, General Manager of the cooperative, has had a large hand in that.
AAK is the only cooperative in PNG to unify so many disparate tribes, and they are proud of the role that coffee plays in promoting unity.
TRACEABILITY
COUNTRY
Papua New Guinea
PRODUCER
AAK Cooperative
REGION
Highlands
VARIETAL
Typica (90%), Caturra (10%)
PROCESSING
Washed
ALTITUDE
1400 - 1615 meters
IMPORTER
Crop to Cup
DID YOU KNOW
While each smallholder farm is small in land size and yields are drastically low, the sheer volume of smallholder farmers allows the country to produce massive volumes most years.
PRICE TRANSPARENCY
$3.58
Price paid by Driftaway
$1.40
Fair Trade price per pound
$2.40
Coffee C-Market price per pound
$0.05
Driftaway's World Coffee Research contribution per pound
This coffee travelled 9,062 miles to the Driftaway Coffee roastery in Queens.
Love the coffee? You can share your compliments & tasting observations with the farmers.
WHY DID WE SELECT THIS COFFEE?
We roasted this coffee last year for the first time, and it was really popular among staff and subscribers alike. It has those classic PNG flavors of chocolate and caramel, and is perfectly balanced: it's sweet without being cloying, and has a clarity without being too bright. At this medium roast level, its flavors really shine.
AVERAGE CUPPING SCORE
86
/100
86
SCAA Cupping Score
20 x 59 kg
Bags purchased
2 years
Length of producer relationship
100% (in 2022)
Transparent coffees purchased
HOW DID WE ROAST THIS COFFEE?
This coffee is being roasted by Ian T. from 27th February to 23rd March in Brooklyn. We use the Loring Kestrel roaster for this profile. We have strict guidelines for each of the coffee profiles, and this roast has to pass the development time ratio test as measured in real-time by the roasting software, Cropster. Once it does, it is approved for production.
QUALITY CONTROL
We perform Quality Control via a process of coffee tasting called cupping on all of our production roasts once a week from home as per our Covid-19 shelter in place guidelines. Each cupping is conducted by our roasting staff Kieran D. and Ian T. using standard equipment, and is logged by our Q-certified cupper Ian T. All coffees are evaluated on a scoring scale of 0 to 3.
- 3.0 = exceptional roast - exceeds expectations
- 2.5 = on par with profile - matches expectations
- 2.0 = good roast, but 1 or 2 elements could be improved - needs improvement
- 1.5 or lower = failed - do not ship
AT YOUR HOME
Brew this coffee with your favorite home brewer and enjoy the taste of incredible coffee! Here are a few tips on how to make the best coffee on each brewer.
View other posts about how to make better coffee at home on our blog Coffeecademy.
